Word: happier
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...that makes sense: money buys you things that make life easier and more satisfying; the easier your life, the happier you tend to be. That relationship isn't entirely linear, since there's a limit to how much wealth can please you; the happiness benefit of an increasing income is especially powerful among people who don't have much money to start with, and diminishes as wealth increases. But studies also reveal that as average income levels have risen over time - in the U.S. and European nations, for example - residents of those countries have not reported being any happier than...
...understand why, researchers at the University of Warwick and Cardiff University decided to break down how individual people evaluate their income. What does wealth mean to people? Previous work has suggested that people tend to value their own wealth more - and are happier - when it compares favorably to everyone else's. The so-called reference-income hypothesis holds that it's not simply how much money you make that contributes to satisfaction, but how much more money you make than, say, the national average. The higher your salary than the norm, the happier you tend to be. That could explain...
Boyce and Moore found that an individual's rank, viewed this way, was a stronger predictor of happiness than absolute wealth. The higher a person ranked within his age group or neighborhood, the more status he had and the happier he was regardless of how much he made in dollars (or, in the study's case, pounds). "What we're trying to do is understand and explain why, over 30 to 40 years, the large economic growth we have experienced hasn't made us any happier," says Boyce. "If absolute income matters, as we increased our income, everybody should...
...data did not include an analysis of which ranking scales were more powerfully associated with satisfaction - that is, whether you are happier or not if you make more than your neighbor or if you make more than others in your profession - but that's the next step in the research. Money may not buy you love but it may be enough to purchase status - and a little bit of happiness...
Farmers today are even happier, since they now ride the most sophisticated stuff ever made. "Onboard GPS, leather seats, CD players - farmers fall in love when they walk into a Deere showroom," Rentschler says. "It's hard to resist buying the green...